Description

Mandalas in China, Japan, and Tibet are basically of two types, representing different aspects of the universe: the garbha-dhatu (Sanskrit: “womb world”; Japanese taizō-kai), in which the movement is from the one to the many; and the vajra-dhatu (Sanskrit: “diamond [or thunderbolt] world”; Japanese kongō-kai), from the many into one. Mandalas may be painted on paper or cloth, drawn on a carefully prepared ground with white and coloured threads or with rice powders (as for Buddhist Tantric ceremonies of initiation), fashioned in bronze, or built in stone, as at Borobudur, in central Java. There the circumambulation of the stupa (a commemorative monument) is tantamount to the ritual approach to the centre.